Distribution
by QueenSkellington
Summary: With the death of Tony's girlfriend, he finds she's left a bigger void in himself than he could have ever anticipated. Can he go on without her? And can he take down his newest threat with the void gaping for all to see?


Not jumping after Pepper had been the hardest thing I've ever had to do. She'd been inches away from me, I could almost feel her soft hand in mine, and then she was gone. Everything I'd become went with her. All the good I felt I had done, all the people I had saved, what had they amounted to? What were they worth when I couldn't save the one thing that I honestly couldn't live without?

This bed's too big without her here. My temporary apartment is too empty. There's too much food, too much space, too much quiet. Paperwork keeps getting delivered to my door, but I don't know what the Hell to do with it. That was Pepper's thing, for God's sake. I'm sure the company is hurting without my signature on those papers, but I don't really care. Not that I really ever did.

My eyes open slowly as JARVIS, speaking from the Mark 42's helmet, alerts me to yet another call from someone—I don't really care to know who, it's not like I'm going to answer it. He chimes in that it's urgent, and I snort, pulling the comforter over my head once again. I didn't want to leave this bed. It smelled like her with the few scraps of clothing that had survived the demolition of mansion tucked between the sheets. I wouldn't leave the bed as long as it smelled like her.

My beautiful Pepper.

"_Stark!" _The voice is a sharp staccato that matches the familiar clack of heels, and my heart leaps thinking it might be Pepper's heels coming towards me. That leap happens to be right off a cliff as the covers are roughly torn from me by a certain fierce Russian, her manicured brows quirking in disgust, "God, you look like a fucking mess, Stark, come on. Up. Nobody's seen you in a month."

"And nobody will ever see me again. Now gimme my blankets back, Romanoff." I reply drunkenly, despite the absolute absence of alcohol. I know this seems the one situation where it would be fitting to drink myself into next year—maybe it's already next year?—but I honestly haven't had the stamina to do anything at all, even drink.

"Not a chance. If you're going to ignore you duties as an Avenger, at least pay attention to your company. For Ms. Potts sake." An irrational rage boiled inside of me. Something unmistakably dark, and I'm sure it showed in my eyes but Natasha didn't even flinch. She was trained to be a cold, heartless bitch anyway. But as quickly as the darkness came over me, it left like a shadow with no evidence of it ever being there. I let out a dejected sigh, burying my face in the pillow, it's surface slick with the grease of my unwashed hair.

"What do you want." I growl as more of a statement than a question into my soiled pillow, my arms tightening around it and hugging it to myself.

"It's not what I want, Tony." Even without looking up I can tell she's closer by the sound of her voice, "It's what S.H.I.E.L.D. wants. And they want you to get your ass out of bed and be the Tony Stark everybody knows and hates." And with those oh-so-sentimental words, she grips the mattress in those delicate little hands of hers and flips it with one breathy grunt.

"_Christ!" _I cry out as I'm pinned beneath the King sized mattress, my bare back pressing into the cold tile, "Morning to you too—Goddamn."

"Now that's the Tony I was talking about. And it's 3:30 in the afternoon."

-x-

"You have anything stronger than this?" I mutter over the lid of a mug with a not quite subtle S.H.I.E.L.D. logo printed on the side, sipping the coffee. Or at least what they called coffee.

"You're practically drinking the grinds, Tony, they don't make anything stronger than that unless you want to eat the beans." Natasha replies sharply, per the norm. God, could this woman not relax? She was easy on the eyes, sure, but that cut throat attitude—and I mean that pretty literally—is a definite deal breaker. If she went down on you there was no chance you'd get out of the experience with your junk attached. Pass.

I blink as I realize she's waiting for me to put my hand on the fancy new scanners S.H.I.E.L.D. had installed, rolling my eyes before pressing my hand to it and waiting a few seconds before it beeped happily and let us through. Damn things were just a pain, and I had really gotten bored of watching Steve repeatedly use them incorrectly, no matter how hilarious it was at first.

"Stark, look who's joined the world of the living." I look up over the rim of my cup as I take another heavy gulp of coffee at that condescending grin that Fury delivered me.

"I'm sorry—are you talking to me? There must be some other Stark around here, because I definitely have not joined your so called "World of the Living"." I grumble, setting aside the coffee. Couldn't he see how badly I didn't want to be here? My shirt was an old number I'd bought at least fifteen years ago, the front stained with oil and the back stained with dirt and blood. The jeans accompanying it were shredded to pieces, and the pieces that were whole were only held together by strained strings of denim. Even my signature had outgrown its boundaries, claiming my entire lower jaw.

"Hilarious. But this really isn't a time for jokes. Being an Avenger isn't a onetime deal, Tony. You can't do one mission and act like you never have to help again—" And there was that rage again, boiling white hot in the pit of my stomach.

"Do you even _know _what I've been through—"

"Believe me, we know. And you've been given a month long grieving period. Now your month is up and you're on the clock again." Fury responds cooly. This was horrible. Everyone around me looked so put together—so made of stone. And here I was, feeling like I would fall to pieces with the slightest breeze. If I couldn't feel like myself, I might as well look it. _Be confident. Be you. _I thought to myself, straightening up a bit.

I could at least appear put together. For Pepper.

"Alright, what's up? What God are we taking down this time?" I ask, stepping up beside Fury to take a look at the screens splayed in front of him. It took me a moment to reengage the mechanical part of my brain to comprehend what I was seeing, but when I did I immediately wanted to un-see it.

The Extremis vaccine.

With _my _name on it. In _my _warehouse. I'd thought I'd obliterated the last of the Extremis, but it turns out that I'd been wrong. Very wrong. I hadn't gotten rid of it.

I'd been distributing it.


End file.
